A romantic comedy about war, this play subverts both romance and war, which the subtitle, "An Anti-romance," indicates. Not only does Shaw make fun of romance between men and women but he also satirizes the so-called noble reasons countries go to war. As he does in other play, Shaw connects social issues, such as war and relationships between men and women, to capitalism, showing how the latter drives the former. At the time he wrote this play people glorified war as something Honorable (with a capital H), but he revealed it to be a rather sleazy enterprise, dependent upon businesses that want to make money.